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charameiOr, Canon Done A Smrt.
The most logical way to do this, I think, given how much each of the Christmas Specials informed my viewing and listening of the others, is chronologically from the Doctor's perspective. Therefore, the 2009 Doctor Who Christmas special that I am starting with is... An Earthly Child, the Big Finish subscriber's bonus.
Basic synopsis: thirty years afterbeing abandoned by a shoe-stealing responsibility-shirker choosing to stay on Earth with David, a man she has known for all of two days, Susan puts out a distress call in an attempt to get alien help for rebuilding the planet and is for some reason surprised when her grandfather turns up. Oh, and also some other aliens, who are evil, but let's face it, we're not here for them.
No, we're here for Carole Ann Ford's triumphant return to the job that actors can never leave, to find out if Paul McGann's son is any good as an actor, and because Eight is wonderful. Alien invasions are largely incidental.
The chemistry between McGann Sr and Ford was excellent, and Marc Platt stayed firmly on the right side of the fine line between good fanboy writing and bad, in that none of the characters lost their integrity as a character for the sake of the plot or a cheap joke. In particular, Susan was still recognisably Susan, albeit a lot more competent than when we last saw her.
McGann Jr... I don't know. I didn't warm to Alex, although on paper I like the character. Jake McGann may be a fine actor in a visual medium - I wouldn't know, I've never seen him - but I think he could use some more experience before he does radio again. His voice grated, and I didn't feel that he conveyed a sufficient depth and complexity of emotion to accurately portray the wide range of emotions that Alex runs through during the story.
On the other hand, the great incestuous Doctor Who extended family is well into its second generation now. When do we get Sam Troughton for a story?
Anyway! The plot, it must be said, was not sparkling and wonderful. Not that there were plotholes, at least noticeable ones, it just didn't have me hanging on every word in the same way as, e.g., Chimes of Midnight or The Cannibalists. And more could have been done with the problems in this family, too - the fact that the Doctor basically abandoned Susan on a post-apocalyptic alien planet, with a man she'd known for two days and only one shoe, was both retconned and glossed over with the line, 'she chose to stay' - er, no, she didn't. I have seen that episode, and Susan is not happy about being left there. There's a sort of implication that they patched it up off-screen during The Five Doctors, but the whole effect is of a bit being missing from somewhere, which is odd and disconcerting.
Still, jumping straight into them getting along wonderfully did allow lots more time for such brilliant quotes as:
'Affectionately screwed up' is probably the best phrase for describing their relationship, which does make a lot of sense really. Overall, Marc Platt's dialogue was excellent: in particular, it displayed an absolute mastery of Talking About It Without Talking About It, whether Our Heroes were discussing Susan's lack of Academy entrance ('Yes, well, things got in the way') or the problem of how Alex happened, which was deflected and discussed with such finesse that you almost didn't notice it was happening at all. (The implication is that a test-tube was involved, but it's very much left up to the listener to decide whether this is because Time Lords are universally sterile/asexual/both or just because Time Lords and humans can't breed across the species barrier.)
Meanwhile, Alex is being a Rebel by doing everything his mother disapproves of, which is a bit of a problem when your mother holds basically the same views as the Doctor. (The way Paul McGann reacts when hearing his great-grandson's chosen academic subject is priceless. Just priceless.) And I did like the fact that he didn't have a sudden conversion at the end: instead, there's an implication that there are still a lot of bridges to be built, assuming he ever speaks to his mother again.
Nitpicks are few, really. I did find myself very confused about Susan's aging until I remembered that she's supposed to be using makeup to make herself look older: if that's what the writers were intending, it wouldn't have hurt them to get a line in there to explain it. Likewise, if she's supposed to be aging at the same rate as the humans, I really want to know about it.
I have a tendency not to like Marc Platt's stuff, but I did quite enjoy An Earthly Child. It could perhaps have been a bit more character-heavy - now there's something that's rarely appropriate to demand of Who - but it was solid and entertaining, and it had Susan.
Memorable Quotes:
"Susan was always reckless..." - the pot calling the kettle black.
Susan's reaction to finding out that the Doctor's up to his eighth life. I kind of love the reaction of every Time Lord to the Doctor's life counts: I'm just waiting for one of them to literally thwap him on the head and yell, "STOP DYING!"
Susan: ...and you're on your own, in a cell...
The Doctor: Yes, nothing ever seems to change, does it?
Context
Well, obviously it's got Susan in it and develops their relationship from parent/child onto a more equal footing, which made a big difference to my reading of certain aspects of End of Time Part 2. We also learn that Alex, a (probable) Time Lord/human halfbreed with one heart, is basically human in every way, which is interesting with respect to Blue Ten.
Oh, and Susan doesn't leave the Earth, so if she and Alex were on Gallifrey for the Time War, they left after this occurs.
/\/\/\
Being Human is meant to be mildly diverting entertainment when there's nothing else on, not induce a three-minute phobiatastic squickfest that left me curled up on my computer stool and muttering the f-word over and over again. What the hell, guys? I get it, he's dying horribly. There's no need to show me.
The most logical way to do this, I think, given how much each of the Christmas Specials informed my viewing and listening of the others, is chronologically from the Doctor's perspective. Therefore, the 2009 Doctor Who Christmas special that I am starting with is... An Earthly Child, the Big Finish subscriber's bonus.
Basic synopsis: thirty years after
No, we're here for Carole Ann Ford's triumphant return to the job that actors can never leave, to find out if Paul McGann's son is any good as an actor, and because Eight is wonderful. Alien invasions are largely incidental.
The chemistry between McGann Sr and Ford was excellent, and Marc Platt stayed firmly on the right side of the fine line between good fanboy writing and bad, in that none of the characters lost their integrity as a character for the sake of the plot or a cheap joke. In particular, Susan was still recognisably Susan, albeit a lot more competent than when we last saw her.
McGann Jr... I don't know. I didn't warm to Alex, although on paper I like the character. Jake McGann may be a fine actor in a visual medium - I wouldn't know, I've never seen him - but I think he could use some more experience before he does radio again. His voice grated, and I didn't feel that he conveyed a sufficient depth and complexity of emotion to accurately portray the wide range of emotions that Alex runs through during the story.
On the other hand, the great incestuous Doctor Who extended family is well into its second generation now. When do we get Sam Troughton for a story?
Anyway! The plot, it must be said, was not sparkling and wonderful. Not that there were plotholes, at least noticeable ones, it just didn't have me hanging on every word in the same way as, e.g., Chimes of Midnight or The Cannibalists. And more could have been done with the problems in this family, too - the fact that the Doctor basically abandoned Susan on a post-apocalyptic alien planet, with a man she'd known for two days and only one shoe, was both retconned and glossed over with the line, 'she chose to stay' - er, no, she didn't. I have seen that episode, and Susan is not happy about being left there. There's a sort of implication that they patched it up off-screen during The Five Doctors, but the whole effect is of a bit being missing from somewhere, which is odd and disconcerting.
Still, jumping straight into them getting along wonderfully did allow lots more time for such brilliant quotes as:
Susan: Someone broke into my house and went through my desk... was that you?
The Doctor: Well, I had to be sure you were safe.
Susan: You could have stayed to say hello.
'Affectionately screwed up' is probably the best phrase for describing their relationship, which does make a lot of sense really. Overall, Marc Platt's dialogue was excellent: in particular, it displayed an absolute mastery of Talking About It Without Talking About It, whether Our Heroes were discussing Susan's lack of Academy entrance ('Yes, well, things got in the way') or the problem of how Alex happened, which was deflected and discussed with such finesse that you almost didn't notice it was happening at all. (The implication is that a test-tube was involved, but it's very much left up to the listener to decide whether this is because Time Lords are universally sterile/asexual/both or just because Time Lords and humans can't breed across the species barrier.)
Meanwhile, Alex is being a Rebel by doing everything his mother disapproves of, which is a bit of a problem when your mother holds basically the same views as the Doctor. (The way Paul McGann reacts when hearing his great-grandson's chosen academic subject is priceless. Just priceless.) And I did like the fact that he didn't have a sudden conversion at the end: instead, there's an implication that there are still a lot of bridges to be built, assuming he ever speaks to his mother again.
Nitpicks are few, really. I did find myself very confused about Susan's aging until I remembered that she's supposed to be using makeup to make herself look older: if that's what the writers were intending, it wouldn't have hurt them to get a line in there to explain it. Likewise, if she's supposed to be aging at the same rate as the humans, I really want to know about it.
I have a tendency not to like Marc Platt's stuff, but I did quite enjoy An Earthly Child. It could perhaps have been a bit more character-heavy - now there's something that's rarely appropriate to demand of Who - but it was solid and entertaining, and it had Susan.
Memorable Quotes:
"Susan was always reckless..." - the pot calling the kettle black.
Susan's reaction to finding out that the Doctor's up to his eighth life. I kind of love the reaction of every Time Lord to the Doctor's life counts: I'm just waiting for one of them to literally thwap him on the head and yell, "STOP DYING!"
Susan: ...and you're on your own, in a cell...
The Doctor: Yes, nothing ever seems to change, does it?
Context
Well, obviously it's got Susan in it and develops their relationship from parent/child onto a more equal footing, which made a big difference to my reading of certain aspects of End of Time Part 2. We also learn that Alex, a (probable) Time Lord/human halfbreed with one heart, is basically human in every way, which is interesting with respect to Blue Ten.
Oh, and Susan doesn't leave the Earth, so if she and Alex were on Gallifrey for the Time War, they left after this occurs.
Being Human is meant to be mildly diverting entertainment when there's nothing else on, not induce a three-minute phobiatastic squickfest that left me curled up on my computer stool and muttering the f-word over and over again. What the hell, guys? I get it, he's dying horribly. There's no need to show me.